A Mormon Daughter's Book Stirs A Storm

By EDWARD WYATT

Published: February 24, 2005

Correction Appended

The daughter of one of Mormonism's most prominent religious scholars has accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child in a forthcoming memoir that is shining an unwelcome spotlight on the practices and beliefs of the much-scrutinized but protectively private Mormon religious community.

''Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith'' details how the author, Dr. Martha Beck, a sociologist and therapist, recovered memories in 1990 of her ritual sexual abuse more than 20 years earlier by her father, Dr. Hugh Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and arguably the leading living authority on Mormon teaching.

The book, being published next month by Crown, an imprint of Random House, has attracted significant criticism both for its depiction of sacred Mormon ceremonies and for the author's effort to tie her sexual abuse to what she says were mental disturbances suffered by her father because of his role as the Mormon Church's ''chief apologist.''

Dr. Nibley, who is 95, is ailing and is physically unable to respond to questions, Alex Nibley, one of eight Nibley children, said in a statement. Dr. Nibley has been aware of Dr. Beck's accusations for several years, Alex Nibley said, and maintains that they are false. As part of a defense of their father, Dr. Beck's seven siblings have condemned her assertions and have hired a psychologist and lawyer who has worked on lawsuits against therapists practicing recovered-memory therapy.

The Mormon Church issued a statement condemning the book, calling it ''seriously flawed in the way it depicts the church, its members and teachings.'' Dr. Beck and her publisher have said she has received e-mail messages containing death threats.

In addition, Mormons around the country have participated in an e-mail campaign against the book, sending more than 3,500 messages to Oprah Winfrey, who has featured ''Leaving the Saints'' on her Internet site and in the March issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. The magazine includes a monthly self-help column by Dr. Beck, who has a doctorate from Harvard.

Though other recent books have taken aim at parts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at well-known Mormons or at Mormon culture, rarely have they focused on so prominent a figure as Dr. Nibley. In 2003, for example, Jon Krakauer wrote about a group of renegade Mormon fundamentalists in ''Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.'' As with the Beck book, the Mormon Church issued a statement condemning it before it was published.

Recovered memory, in which a suppressed traumatic incident is recalled years later, has been one of the most disputed topics among mental-health professionals in the last 15 years. The American Psychological Association states that while ''there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them,'' most leaders in the field also agree ''that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later.''

But ''Leaving the Saints,'' Dr. Beck's fourth book, seems as likely to be discussed for the things it leaves out as for those it includes. Among the omissions is an incident of sexual abuse that Dr. Beck said recently in an interview was never suppressed. When she was about 9, she said, a teenage neighbor barricaded her in his room, stripped most of her clothes off and sexually assaulted her. He did not achieve penetration, Dr. Beck said, and the incident was interrupted by her father, who was in the neighbor's house at the time. Though she called the event ''extremely traumatizing,'' she said the incident was cut in the editing of her manuscript to shorten the book.

Dr. Beck also does not mention that one person she consulted about her sexual abuse was Lynne Finney, a Utah psychotherapist who has said that up to one out of three Americans were sexually abused as children. In the early 1990's, Ms. Finney, who is referred to in ''Leaving the Saints'' by the pseudonym ''Mona,'' was a leading practitioner of recovered-memory therapy, including the use of self-hypnosis, a practice that some studies have shown can result in the creation of false memories. Asked about the omission, Dr. Beck said she consulted Ms. Finney only after having already recovered the memories of abuse. She said that she practiced self-hypnosis once under Ms. Finney but that it did not play a part in her memory recovery.

While Dr. Beck is now highly critical of the Mormon Church, in 1990, she and her husband, John C. Beck, had a book published by a company owned by the Mormon Church arguing that homosexuality is a compulsive behavior that can be overcome. After leaving the church, however, the Becks divorced and have lived openly as homosexuals, something each acknowledged in interviews. Dr. Beck said she left those details out of the book to keep it focused on the accusations of sexual abuse; John Beck declined to comment further on the book.

Those and other facets of Dr. Beck's story have been discussed online in chat rooms and on bulletin boards, at sites devoted to Mormonism and at those favored by people who have left the church and view its practices unfavorably. The book's own Web site, www.leavingthesaints.com, has had more than 6,500 visitors in February alone, triple the number in January, and has received more than 200 e-mail messages, 80 percent of them expressing outrage at the book, the publisher says.

In an interview, Dr. Beck said she did not intend ''Leaving the Saints'' to be an indictment of Mormonism. Though she said her book did not reveal any church secrets, it discusses Mormon rites like the temple ceremony, a sacred ritual, and subjects like regulation temple garments, which Mormons wear under their clothes -- in a sometimes mocking tone that has infuriated many devout Mormons. Her publisher said Dr. Beck had received at least one death threat by e-mail that cited her depictions of Mormon ceremonies.

''I didn't write it to convince anyone not to be Mormon or not to join the Mormons,'' she said. ''I just needed to get the story of my childhood out of my system.''

Her childhood was marked, she said, by unexplained depression, anorexia and despair that at times left her suicidal. Even before she recovered her memories of sexual abuse, she said, she recalled suffering unexplained pain and bleeding between her thighs when she was about 5. She writes that she remembered thinking that ''if anyone finds out about it, no one will ever marry me.'' In her teens and 20's, she writes, several doctors commented on unusual scar tissue in her vaginal area, which she cites as physical evidence of the abuse. Later, she said, doctors confirmed to her that the vaginal scarring was not the result of childbirth.

It was not until she was in her late 20's, however, while teaching at Brigham Young, that Dr. Beck experienced a flashback that resulted in the memories of what she describes as ritualistic rape by her father. During the incident, which she believes took place in her home while her older siblings were at school, her father recited incantations about Abraham and Isaac.

Dr. Beck's siblings, who have known about her claims for almost a decade and several of whom attended at least one family-group session with one of Dr. Beck's therapists, dispute her account, saying that no evidence exists of abuse and that incidents in the book are either inaccurate or made up. Rebecca Nibley, a sister, said Dr. Beck ''encouraged me to get my own recovered memories of being abused.''

''As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember anything untoward concerning my father's behavior toward me, and I can't validate any of Martha's claims,'' she added.

Dr. Beck twice confronted her father about the claims, once at a family therapy session with her husband and her parents shortly after she recovered the memories. The other time was at a 2001 meeting in a hotel, an event that she uses as a device in ''Leaving the Saints'' as the story of her life and her understanding of her sexual abuse unfolds.

Joining her at that hotel meeting was a member of her extended family who has supported Dr. Beck's assertions from the beginning. The family member, who is identified in the book by a pseudonym, agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity after receiving threats of physical violence because of her support of Dr. Beck.

''I believed Martha from the beginning because the memories she had of elements of the abuse -- memories that never went away and were always part of her history -- also fit with the outward signs of the abuse I saw in her growing up,'' the family member said. Speaking to Dr. Beck's parents about it since, she said, ''has only served to strengthen my belief in the veracity of her reporting of her experience.''

Correction: February 26, 2005, Saturday
An article in The Arts on Thursday about accusations of sexual abuse made by Dr. Martha Beck, a sociologist and therapist, against Dr. Hugh Nibley, her father and a prominent Mormon scholar, misstated his age. He was 94, as his obituary yesterday noted, not 95.